Autonomist Marxism
Autonomist Marxism, or simply autonomism, is a school of Marxist thought that emphasizes the ability of the working class to force changes in the capitalist system and bring about a post-capitalist society through its autonomous activity. This perspective sees class struggle, rather than objective economic laws, as the primary driving force of history. Key concepts within autonomist Marxism include the refusal of work, class composition, the social factory, and self-valorization.
The approach is distinguished from other forms of Marxism by its focus on working-class self-activity as the foundation for both resisting capital and creating new social relations. It emerged in the mid-20th century through the work of groups in the United States, France, and most notably, Italy. Autonomists argue for a "political reading" of Karl Marx's works, particularly Capital, treating it not as a work of economic theory but as a strategic weapon for understanding and advancing the class struggle from the perspective of the working class. The framework also expands the definition of the "working class" beyond the waged industrial proletariat to include unwaged workers—such as housewives, students, and peasants—whose labor is considered essential for the reproduction of capital.
Contemporary autonomist thought can be broadly divided into several tendencies. One, associated with Italian post-operaismo figures like Antonio Negri and Paolo Virno, focuses on the affirmative and constitutive power of the "multitude". A second, represented by the American Midnight Notes Collective, emphasizes the ongoing struggle over the "commons". A third, developed by John Holloway, proposes a "negative" autonomism centered on the refusal of and struggle against capitalist social forms.
Etymology and definition
The term "autonomist Marxism" was coined by Harry Cleaver in the 1990s to group together diverse Marxist writers and militants whose work shared a recurring emphasis on the "power of workers to act autonomously". This tradition, according to Cleaver, includes not only self-identified Marxists but also figures from council communism and anarcho-communism who shared a focus on working-class self-activity, even if they rejected the "Marxist" label. The core of autonomist Marxism is a "political reading" of Karl Marx and of class society, which Cleaver defines as a strategic analysis conducted from the perspective of the working class with the aim of clarifying its own power and strategy.This approach serves as an alternative to both traditional "political economy" readings of Marx, which are criticized for focusing one-sidedly on the "laws of motion" of capital while treating workers as victims, and "philosophical" readings, which are seen as exercises in ideological critique detached from the practical needs of struggle. For autonomists, revolutionary strategy develops directly from the ongoing growth of working-class struggle, not from abstract theory or the leadership of a vanguard party. The primary point of departure is the self-activity of the working class, which is understood as "more than a victimized cog in the machinery of capital".
Historical antecedents and influences
Autonomist Marxism synthesizes several "threads" of Marxist thought that, beginning in the 1940s, sought to overcome the economic determinism and one-sided focus on capital's power that characterized orthodox Marxism. These currents developed in different national contexts but shared a common focus on the independent power of the working class.Johnson–Forest Tendency and Socialisme ou Barbarie
One of the earliest antecedents was the Johnson–Forest Tendency, a faction within the American Trotskyist movement in the 1940s led by C. L. R. James and Raya Dunayevskaya. Disillusioned with the orthodox Trotskyist analysis of the Soviet Union as a "degenerate workers' state", they developed a theory of state capitalism, arguing that the USSR was a variation of the same phase of capitalist development occurring in the West. Their analysis was grounded in the study of production relations, identifying the introduction of Taylorism and Fordism in both the US and the USSR as new forms of domination.Crucially, unlike the Frankfurt School, which saw only domination in these new technologies, the Johnson–Forest Tendency emphasized the power of workers to oppose them. They documented the autonomous struggles of rank-and-file workers against both management and union bureaucracies, particularly in the Detroit auto industry. James also argued that the independent struggles of Black workers constituted a vanguard of the American working class. This led to a "total repudiation of the theory and practice of the Leninist theory of the Vanguard Party", in favor of recognizing that new organizational forms arise spontaneously from workers' own experiences.
In France, a parallel development occurred with the formation of the Socialisme ou Barbarie group, led by Cornelius Castoriadis and Claude Lefort. They broke with Trotskyism for similar reasons as Johnson–Forest, with whom they were in direct contact. They also developed a critique of Soviet bureaucracy and focused on "workers' daily resistance in industry", translating and publishing accounts of American workers' struggles to inform their own analyses of the French context. These currents directly influenced the Italian workerists through figures like Danilo Montaldi, who translated and circulated their work, providing early Italian thinkers with analyses of autonomous workers' struggles inside modern factories.
Italian ''operaismo'' (workerism)
The most significant influence on autonomist Marxism came from the Italian "workerist" movement of the 1960s. This current emerged from the journals Quaderni Rossi and Classe Operaia primarily as a response to the perceived failures of the traditional Italian labor movement—particularly the Italian Communist Party and Italian Socialist Party —to analyze and respond to the new forms of class conflict developing in the factories of post-war Italy's "economic miracle". Theorists such as Raniero Panzieri, Mario Tronti, and Antonio Negri developed a powerful critique of orthodox Marxism and the PCI, grounded in the analysis of a new wave of autonomous factory struggles.Panzieri, analyzing the rise of Fordism in Italy, argued that capitalist technological development and planning were a direct response to working-class struggle. Capital's plan for the division of labor was a political plan to divide and control the working class. This inverted the traditional Marxist view, which saw technology as a neutral productive force. Tronti built on this, arguing that working-class struggle is the primary motor of capitalist development. He formulated what became known as the "Copernican inversion" of Marxism, famously writing in the first issue of Classe Operaia: "We too have worked with a concept that puts capitalist development first, and workers second. This is a mistake. And now we have to turn the problem on its head... and start again from the beginning: and the beginning is the class struggle of the working class." From this viewpoint, capital is understood not as an independent force but as a reactive one within the class relation, forced to constantly reorganize itself in response to workers' autonomous power.
These insights informed two key areas of study: concrete "workers' inquiries" into contemporary class struggles, pioneered by Romano Alquati in Italian factories, and historical reassessments of working-class organization. Sergio Bologna, for example, analyzed the historical forms of workers' councils and industrial unions as products of specific class compositions, rather than as universally applicable models.
Feminist movements and the unwaged
A decisive advance in autonomist thought came from the feminist movement, particularly the International Wages for Housework campaign launched in the 1970s by figures like Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James. Expanding on Tronti's analysis of capitalist reproduction, they focused on the central role of women's unwaged domestic labor in producing and reproducing labor-power—the most essential commodity for capital. The theoretical work of groups like Italy's Lotta Femminista was central to this development. Thinkers such as Leopoldina Fortunati analyzed how the work of reproduction is posited as "natural" production under capitalism, appearing to be outside the creation of value while in fact producing the fundamental commodity of labor-power itself.This analysis demonstrated how the wage relation divides the working class into waged and unwaged sectors, rendering the struggles of the unwaged invisible to traditional Marxism. The hierarchy between the waged and unwaged was identified as the fundamental basis for sexism and racism within capital, as these divisions are maintained through differentiated access to the wage. The demand for a wage for housework was thus a strategic one, aimed at making this unpaid labor visible, overcoming the primary division within the class, and providing the unwaged with the material resources to struggle against it. This work broadened the definition of the working class and allowed for an understanding of the autonomous movements of women, students, and peasants as integral parts of an international cycle of struggle.
Key concepts
Working-class autonomy and the refusal of work
The foundational principle of autonomist Marxism is that the working class is an autonomous political subject capable of acting in its own interests, independent of and often against its "official" organizations like trade unions and political parties. This autonomy is expressed in everyday struggles on the shop floor as well as in larger social upheavals like wildcat strikes and riots.From this perspective, a key strategy of the working class is the "refusal of work". Under capitalism, which is defined as a social system based on the imposition of work, the struggle is not to "liberate" work from capital but to abolish it. This contrasts with traditional socialist views that seek to create a society of non-alienated labor. Autonomists argue that for the "mass worker"—deskilled under Fordism—work can only be a means of social control to be abolished. The struggle for less work and more income is seen as a direct attack on the foundations of capital.